From Russia With Love

For anyone not yet fifty – I doubt you can fully imagine the thrill of a new Bond movie. There are now fifty films in the franchise, the latest being Skyfall (in case you didn’t notice the hype) and I can imagine that the first films might seem like museum pieces to youngsters today. But when I was a teenager the films were quite simply thrilling! And so were the books. 

The first Bond film I saw was From Russia With Love. It was the second film made and it starred Sean Connery. The story centres on a plot by SMERSH the Soviet counter-intelligence agency, to assassinate Bond in such a way as to discredit both him and British Intelligence. As bait for the plot, the Russians use a beautiful cipher clerk and the Spektor, a Soviet decoding machine. Much of the action takes place in Istanbul and on the Orient Express.

The film was released in 1963 and I was fifteen. I saw it with my best friend and his girlfriend, and a girl who wanted to be my girlfriend. But, as I remember it, I wasn’t very keen. It had been snowing and it was cold. I remember wearing my new coat. And I remember the intoxicating smell of the cavernous, art deco Odeon cinema. The film was exciting, moody and, with its seduction scene, quite sexy to a fifteen year old. Innovative too – with its MI5 gadgets. It had all the ingredients for future Bond films.

I loved the books too. From Russia With Love is probably still my favourite. It was the fifth in the series, published in 1957. I can’t remember if it was the first I read – nor if I read it before I saw the film or after. I do remember reading (or re-reading) the whole series when I should have been studying for my exams. Ian Fleming was a very good writer, with pace and an eye for detail.  And modern thriller writers would do well to study his technique.

Writing this has made me hanker to read the book and see the film again. And of course the reason I wrote this piece is that I’ve just seen Skyfall, one of the best Bond films I think, with its nod to its past. You probably had to be over fifty if, when, at the end of the film as the familiar Bond theme music was finally used, you found yourself wiping away a small tear from the corner of your eye.

. . . aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Shirley Bassey

As any members of the punk generation will tell you, even aging reptiles like meself, we are not meant to like people such as Dame Shirley, in fact we are supposed to spit vitriol and abuse at such highly vaunted middle of the road vamps but...I am useless at spitting and have no idea where to get vitriol from.

I have liked the woman ever since she walked into the joint looking like a girl of distinction, a class act without suspenders but oozing sex appeal with a voice that roared with a clarity and passion that only someone from Wales could muster. And she sure had/has a nice set of lungs on her. Her songs for the Bond movies are the pinnacle of that franchise themes

Her latest album, with songs by a range of modern luminaries, (Richard Hawley and The Manic Street Preachers to name but two) is fantastic, unbelievable, incredible with more superlatives than you can throw at a sitting pensioner from Splot.

Shirley Bassey is a Dame of distinction, a real big singer.

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.